On the eve of 1900, Gorky came out with the novel Foma Gordeev. In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, it was said that everything had turned upside down, but had not yet met the post-reform time. Foma Gordeev depicts the beginning of “laying down”.
As a member of the populist circles of the 1980s, Gorky was critical of the doctrine of the populists, but echoes of his influence can still be found in the writer's early works; such are, for example, the motives of sacrifice in the legend of Danko and in the Song of the Falcon. The novel "Foma Gordeev" testified to the obsolescence of such hobbies. This is the largest anti-popular work, leaving no doubt that Gorky began to master the Marxist knowledge of social development.
After the appearance of "Foma Gordeev," readers and critics began to talk about him as a Marxist writer. Thus, the future People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs GV Chicherin wrote to a comrade in 1901: “Instead of the world outlook of the era of natural economy, there is a completely new outlook of the urban proletariat<...> Marxism and Gorky - these are our main phenomena in recent years. (And in "Foma Gordeev" - the great influence of Marxism) ".
Gorky built his great works (from "Foma Gordeev" to "The Life of Klim Samgin") as chronicle novels, which allowed him to show not only the development of human life in time, as N. Leskov did in his chronicles, but also the movement of time itself as a historical category.
The heroes turned out to be correlated with the historical step of Russia. Some of them became active figures, others convinced that a person and "his time" are not always the same values. The gravitation towards such a correlation was clearly manifested already in the first novel, the hero of which did not hear the true calls of his time.
The greatest attention in the novel is paid to two figures: the guardian and affirmator of bourgeois consciousness - Yakov Mayakin and a renegade of his class, becoming "sideways" to him - Foma Gordeev. In the 90s. capitalism has taken a strong position in the country.
The image of the "grimy" so expressively captured in the works of Shchedrin, Uspensky and Ostrovsky was receding into the past, giving way to money-makers and manufacturers. Gorky's predecessors in creating the image of an offensive bourgeois (P. Boborykin - "Vasily Terkin", Vas. Nemirovich-Danchenko - "Wolf's Syt" and others) noted the emergence of a new type of merchant, "who begins to realize his strength", but did not create a typical figure his.
Yakov Mayakin is a social type who embodied the potential strength of the bourgeoisie at the end of the century. The class, master's consciousness permeates the entire life activity of a successful merchant, all his moral foundations. This is a merchant who thinks not only of himself, but also of the fate of his estate.
Capitalism began to penetrate into all areas of social and economic activity, and it turned out that Mayakin was no longer just domination in the field of economics. He is striving for power on a larger scale. Remarkable is the opinion of the Volga millionaire Bugrov, who told Gorky that he had not met the Mayakins on his way, but felt: "This is how a person should be!"
The author of "Foma Gordeeva" learned from the classics a comprehensive understanding of human characters and the determination of their native environment and society as a whole. But, penetrating ever deeper as an artist into the class structure of society, he introduced something new into his study of man.
In his works, the social dominant of the heroes' worldview was strengthened, and in this regard, the class coloring of their inner world became more noticeable. The organic fusion of the class with the original allowed Gorky to create a large gallery of heroes that were related but nonetheless so dissimilar to each other.
Contemporary criticism has grasped the characteristic feature of Gorky the psychologist. The critic L. Obolensky wrote, referring to Yakov Mayakin, that Gorky "grasps" along with the individual traits of the hero also the traits "family, hereditary, formed under the influence of the profession (class), and enhances these latter to such a brightness that we already have not an ordinary figure that we would never have noticed in life, but a semi-real, semi-ideal, almost symbolic statue, a monument to a whole class in its typical features. "
Along with the merchant, leading his pedigree since the 18th century, Foma Gordeev also shows one of the first accumulators of capital in the post-reform era. With all the limitations of the reform of 1861, it gave an opportunity to manifest the dormant energy and ingenuity of the people. Hence Gorky's enormous interest in capitalists who have emerged from the popular milieu and have not yet completely severed ties with it. Ignat Gordeev, Savely Kozhemyakin, Yegor Bulychev - all these are rich people, endowed not only with the desire for money, but also with "audacity of heart", which prevents them from completely merging with the world of their owners.
Gorky's novel spoke about the development of capitalism in Russia and at the same time about the instability of the new way of life. Evidence of this is the emergence of protest among the workers, as well as the emergence of those who disagree with bourgeois practice and morality in the ranks of the bourgeoisie itself.
At first, Gorky wanted to create a novel about the prodigal son of capitalism. The break with one's environment, breaking out of it became an increasingly remarkable life phenomenon that attracted the attention of other writers as well. The hero of Chekhov's story "Three Years" is on the verge of such breaking out. However, in the process of his creative work, Gorky came to the conclusion that Thomas “is not typical as a merchant, as a representative of a class” and, in order not to violate the “truth of life,” another, more typical figure should be placed next to him.
This is how an equal-sized image of the second central hero arose. These are characters who mutually condition each other. Fearing that the typical image of a merchant, striving not only for economic, but also for political power, would cause a ban on censorship, and trying to preserve this new figure in Russian literature, Gorky, in his words, “blocked” her with the figure of Foma (“I blocked Mayakin, and the censorship did not touch him ").
Mayakin and Thomas are opposing heroes. For one of them, everything is subordinated to the desire to get rich and rule. His ideal is based on the economic principle. He subordinates everything to him, including the life of people close to him. For another, the attitude to life is associated with social and moral cognition of it. The master's principle will more than once manifest itself in the behavior and consciousness of Thomas (he is the son of his environment), but it does not dominate his inner world.
And if the "prodigal son" of the bourgeoisie, Taras Mayakin, quickly forgetting his former opposition, returns to his father's house in order to multiply what his father has gained, then Thomas, endowed with a pure moral sense and an unshaken conscience, acts as an exposer of the masters of life - a return to his father's house for him impossible.
The novel is permeated with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe need to awaken the consciousness of the people. This thought, manifested in the outlining of the character of the leading character, in the disputes of the characters of the novel, in the author's thoughts about the fate of the motherland, binds together the heterogeneous material of life. In his early work, Gorky showed himself to be a master of the bright southern landscape. In "Foma Gordeev" there are equally impressive pictures of the Volga nature, reminiscent of the greatness and painful slumber of the Russian people.
“Everything around is marked by slowness; everything - both nature and people - lives awkwardly, lazily - but it seems that behind laziness there is a tremendous power - an invincible power, but still devoid of consciousness, which has not created clear desires and goals for itself ... And the absence of consciousness in this half-asleep life puts on the whole beautiful expanse of her shadows of sadness. " Lack of clear consciousness is also characteristic of the young Gordeev. Thomas has a warm heart. He does not accept the everyday commandments of Mayakin, he is worried about the humiliation and poverty of some and the wrong power of others.
But, like Gorky's early heroes, he does not understand the causes of social inequality. Like the tramp rebels, he is socially blind, and this makes his anger of little effect. The radical journalist Yezhov, who is observing Gordeev's spontaneous indignation against those in power, tells him: “Give it up! You can't do anything! There is no need for people like you ... Your time, the time for the strong, but stupid, is over, brother! You are late ... ".
Foma's spontaneous, "inner" rebellion is painted in romantic tones, and this gave rise to a number of literary scholars to assert that Gorky created a romantic image. But Gorky set himself the task not to approve, but to discredit a romantic of this type. He was already an anachronism. Thomas is above his environment in the world of moral values, but his intellect is low and his dreams are chaotic.
The young Gordeev's frenzied heart longs to subvert social evil, but he is incapable of social generalization. His mind is asleep, and Gorky repeatedly emphasizes this in the novel. Exposing speech on the ship is the highest expression of the angry rebellion of the prodigal son of the bourgeoisie and at the same time evidence of the archaic nature of his rebellion.
Freedom-loving by nature, the hero is defeated not only because the exposed ones took up arms against him, but primarily because he himself is not yet ripe for effective social protest. Gorky's novel was the last novel of the century about a lonely romantic hero as a hero who does not meet the requirements of the new era.
Gorky combines recognition of the futility of spontaneous rebellion with a search for carriers of effective social protest. He finds them in the proletarian environment. The workers portrayed in the novel Foma Gordeev had not yet embarked on the path of revolutionary struggle, but the dispute between the journalist Yezhov and the worker Krasnoshchekov about the "spontaneous" and "conscious" beginning in the labor movement testified to the workers' desire for such a struggle.
This will be said more clearly in the story of three comrades looking for their path in life (Three, 1900). One of them dies, choosing the path of non-resistance. The second, who tried not to change, but only somewhat soften the ugliness of the proprietary world, also perishes. And only the third, worker Grachev, will find the true road, drawing closer to the revolutionary circle.
Gorky could not yet create a full-blooded image of a hero-worker - this hero had just begun to show himself in life, but he was caught by the ever deepening revolutionary mood of social aspirations. A romantic call for a heroic deed, which always has a place in life, sounded in "Old Woman Izergil". The "Song of the Falcon" called for a feat. In 1899, the author will strengthen its revolutionary sound by creating a new ending with the famous slogan:
We sing glory to the madness of the brave!
The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life!
In Foma Gordeev, Yezhov speaks of the approaching storm. Soon, many heroes of Russian literature will be gripped by the premonition of a storm. Chekhovsky Tuzenbach ("Three Sisters") will say: "The time has come, a community is approaching all of us, a healthy, strong storm is preparing, which is coming, is already close and will soon blow away laziness, indifference, prejudice to work, rotten boredom from our society."
In the prose poem "Lights" V. Korolenko will remind that, no matter how dark life is, "there are still lights ahead! .." Chekhov's play is fraught with a premonition of impending changes, in "Ogonyok" there is a hope for these changes. It was a response to the burning problems of the day, but both artists do not yet feel the immediate breath of a formidable storm.
This breath is embodied in the famous "Song of the Petrel" (1901), in which one heard not only a call for revolution, but also the confidence that it would win. This song gained even more popularity than the Song of the Falcon, which glorified the revolutionary feat.
The image of the storm, which Petrel called for, went back simultaneously to two literary sources: to the tradition of freedom-loving poetry (Yazykov, Nekrasov, etc.) and to socialist journalism at the turn of the century. The new song was widely used in revolutionary propaganda, it was read at student parties, and distributed in the form of leaflets.
Gorky began to be perceived as a singer of the revolution, as a writer calling for active revolutionary resistance. The revolutionary romanticism, which is fanned by "Song of the Petrel", was the expression of a new ideal, a new historical perspective.
History of Russian Literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.
At the turn of the century, in 1899, Gorky publishes his novel Foma Gordeev. This is a broad, meaningful picture of our time, it tells about the growing strength of the Russian bourgeoisie.
The writer broadly and vividly draws representatives of the entrepreneurial type. He introduces us to merchants of the patriarchal type, big tycoons, such as Ananiy Shchurov. Once this "cunning, old devil" was a counterfeiter and a murderer, now he has become a timber merchant and a steamer, who has accumulated considerable capital on robberies and deceptions, and he feels himself the ruler. He does not accept anything new, the spread of machines, hates all kinds of freedom. According to Mayakin, he looks like a cunning and insidious fox: "... He will raise his eyes to heaven, and he will put his paw in your bosom and then pull out your wallet ..."
Next to him is the clever strong-willed Ignat Gordeev, formerly a waterman, and now the owner of three steamers and a dozen barges. He is obsessed with a passion for profit, is distinguished by a huge vital energy with which he rushes about in trade, catching gold, but Ignat knew the hard work of a burlak, he comes from the people, he has a thirst for activity. He has an irrepressible desire for life. And most importantly, his soul boils up rebelliously and sometimes throws it away from profit. And then he begins to drink and debauch, scatter his wealth, be it a steamer, a barge or money.
A striking figure is Yakov Mayakin, who believes that the value of every person is determined by the available capital. Mayakin considers merchants to be the first force in the state, he is very smart, calculating and cynical. He divides people into masters and into a dumb mass - simple bricks, building materials in the hands of the masters.
Shown in the novel and the younger generation of the merchant class. Taras and Lyubov Mayakins and Afrikan Smolin belong to him. They must inherit Jacob's business and ideas at a new stage. But they only outwardly differ from their fathers in education, European culture. But Taras Mayakin has said goodbye to the dreams of his youth and is the owner of ship production in Siberia. And from Afrikan Smolin, a "swindler of the first degree", nothing advanced can be expected.
But Gorky set the task of showing a person who is looking for a job within his powers and a wide scope for a free and honest life. Such a person is Foma Gordeev. He inherited a lot from a taciturn mother who was acutely aware of falsehood. Rampage and impetuosity he took over from his father. The nanny introduced the boy to the world of wonderful fairy tales and legends. Communication with the sailors also affected him. And now those around him begin to notice something that is not their own in Foma, "after all, you do not look terribly like a merchant," notes Lyuba. "There is something special about you," says Sophia. This is something that scares Ignat terribly. But reality has done its job. Yakov Mayakin instilled in him: "... either gnaw everyone or lie in the mud." Looking at Foma, the captain of the "Prilezhny" remarked: "... a good breed puppy, from the very first hunt - a good dog." But Thomas is dissatisfied with himself, a tendency to revelry. A life built on deception, greed plunges him into despair, he sees no way out of the impasse. The thoughts of pure love were destroyed when he lost faith in Sophia Medynskaya. He experiences delight only during the lifting of the sunken barge. "It's stuffy to me," exclaims Thomas. "Isn't this life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that's why it hurts because I can't put up with it!" Thomas becomes the prodigal son in his midst. Finding himself on the steamer Ilya Muromets, surrounded by eminent merchants, he feels the immensity of claims and begins to rebel, he throws words of disgust: "You did not make life - prison ..." he is defeated, ties with the merchants are interrupted.
Thomas is bound and declared insane. But one can feel his triumph in the words: "You can't bind the truth, you're lying!" the tragedy of Foma Gordeev is that he did not want to live according to the wolf's laws, he believed that it was joyful, honest work. And according to Yezhov, "the future belongs to people of honest labor."
Ananiy Shchurov personifies the yesterday of Russian capitalism with its outright predation, backwardness, straightforward reactionaryness. He is the enemy of technical progress. Having grown rich at the cost of crime, he appears in the novel as a fierce and vicious enemy of the people.
The image of the breeder Yakov Mayaknn is more complex. Gorky writes that Mayaknn enjoyed respect among the merchants, "the glory of a" brain "man and was very fond of pretending to be the antiquity of his kind." Mayakin is a kind of ideologue of the bourgeoisie, striving for political power. He divides people into slaves, doomed to always obey, and masters, called to command. The masters of the country should be, in his opinion, the capitalists. Life philosophy of Mayakin is revealed in his aphorisms.
“Life, brother Thomas,” he says to his pupil, “is very simply staged: either gnaw at all, or lie in the mud ... Here, brother, approaching a man, hold honey in your left hand, and a knife in your right…”
Foma Gordeev - an outstanding personality. He turned out to be a stranger in the merchant world. An honest, sincere person striving for justice, he tries to break free, but this happens only at the cost of death. Faced with a reality built on deception, crime, greed, Foma Gordeev falls into even greater despair and sees no way out of the impasse.
He inherited a lot from his mother, who felt some kind of falsehood in life.
5. Problems, conflict in the play by M. Gorky "Bourgeois".
Gorky's first play was "Bourgeois" (1901). The author himself initially defined his work as a dramatic sketch in 4 acts with the title “Bourgeois. Scenes in Bessemenov's House ”. Over time, this play, staged by K.S. Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theater, acquired all the features of a real drama, especially since the actors, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, were in a hurry with the premiere: they needed to play "Bourgeois" so that "Gorky felt like a playwright and wrote further." As you know, it all happened - Alexei Maksimovich later created many worthy plays that made the glory of Russian and world theater.
Already the title of the play - "Bourgeois" - indicates a very definite class in Russia. This is the lower class of the townsfolk, descendants of artisans and small traders: this class was below the merchant class in terms of its position in society.
In the center of the image is the family of Vasily Bessemenov, a wealthy bourgeoisie, foreman of the paint shop. This sedate man, who wanted to become a deputy to the city duma from the guild organizations, was not accidentally bore such a name. His daughter Tatiana, a schoolteacher, is still single at the age of 28, and hopes of getting heirs to the family are dwindling every day. Son Peter is a former student expelled from the university for participating in student unrest.
All this, of course, does not please the father, who pinned hopes on his children, therefore, scandals constantly occur in the house between him and his children, who do not want to live according to their father's orders. The hero himself is in a state of gloomy vigilance and sees the reason for the failures of his children in life in the pride that has possessed them. The author, on the contrary, emphasizes that the education received by the children did not make them happier: the usual bourgeois guidelines for them are outdated, and their own will for any changes is not enough, therefore, their interest in life is weakened.
Of course, the mood in the house of the protagonist is largely due to the philistine boredom inherent in any provincial town. But with Gorky, everything is complicated by the multifaceted nature of human relationships. Many people live in the house of the Bessemenovs: this is the pupil of the head of the family, Neil, a young driver's assistant, in whom his daughter Tatyana is hopelessly in love. This is a distant relative, and a young widow of a prison warden, who rents a room, and parasites - the song Teterev and student Shishkin.
Such a number of people in the house should, apparently, diversify the boring life of a bourgeois family, concerned only with making money. Indeed, everything in the house is subordinated to the cult of money, because they are the basis of a comfortable existence. At the same time, there is no faith in the best, even in any changes. It is no coincidence that Tatyana, who has lost faith in the reciprocity of her feelings for the Nile, complains to her friend: "I was born without faith in my heart".
The author is sure that their uncertainty is generated by the fear of responsibility for their future, the fear of change, the inability to change anything even in their own life. In this sense, Neil is opposed to all - the hero "progressive" and, as Vasily Vasilyevich clearly hints, "Future socialist-revolutionary"... He is used to fighting: even in the forge, he loves to forge, not because he loves to work, but he likes to fight with naughty metal and suppress its resistance.
However, in general, the attitude towards the Neil is ambiguous. It emphasizes hidden strength, tranquility, but behind all this there is an insensitive nature, unable to understand the beautiful. For example, in the first Moscow Art Theater production, the actor who played Neil portrayed him as a rude and uncouth dork in order to emphasize the absence of emotional experiences.
Bessemenov himself involuntarily opposes his son and pupil, and the comparison is not in favor of Peter. The father says to his son: "I learned to contempt for everything living, but did not acquire size in actions"... And about Nile he speaks almost with love: "He is impudent, he is a robber, but a man with a face"... Only even "humanity" the young machinist is not saved from the tragic denouement of the play: Tatyana, realizing that the sympathies of her beloved go to her younger rival, the seamstress Pole, tries to commit suicide.
After a failed suicide attempt, Tatiana realizes her doom, so the play ends with a scene where she falls on the piano keys, making a loud discordant sound. A little later A. Chekhov in the play "The Cherry Orchard" with the help of the sound of a broken string will emphasize the break with the old life.
The entire play by Gorky is imbued with accusations against the bourgeoisie. Residents, observing everyday boredom, reproach the owners that they have "You will die from longing"because they don't do anything, they don't have any inclination. And the young widow, in a fit of despair, shouts: "You are some kind of rust, not people!"
Later, in Soviet times, the word "philistine, petty bourgeois" will become an abusive word, a synonym for philistine. For example, what are the words of the heroine of the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears": "That's it, the bourgeois swamp has sucked in!"
In the story "Foma Gordeev" Gorky continued the traditional theme of Russian classical literature - the exposure of the anti-human nature of the power of money (A. N. Ostrovsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, and others). He considered the work on the story "a transition to a new form of literary life." Jack London called the work a "big book": "It contains not only the vastness of Russia, but also the breadth of life." This is a "healing book", for "it affirms good."
The story was prepared by the development of Russian realism in the second half of the 19th century.
Its theme is the internal disintegration of the bourgeois class, the historical doom of the world order. Among the “masters of life,” a special, perhaps most important, place is occupied by the bourgeois of the new formation, such as Yakov Mayakin, the “ideologist” of the new merchant class. However, the story is called "Foma Gordeev". Why? Gorky replies: “This story. should be a broad, meaningful picture of our time, and at the same time, against its background, an energetic healthy person, looking for things to do, looking for the spaciousness of his energy, should fiercely. It's cramped for him. Life crushes him, he sees that heroes have no place in it, they are knocked off their feet by trifles, like Hercules, who defeated the hydras, would have been knocked down by a cloud of mosquitoes ”. Thomas is incompatible with the world of property owners and must break out of it. This image is clearly romanticized by the writer.
Gorky continued the theme in Essays on America, the story The Artamonovs' case, the play Vassa Zheleznov, and other works.
- M. Gorky is the pseudonym of the writer. His real name and surname is Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov. He is known as a Russian writer and publicist. In the novel "Mother" (1906-1907) he sympathetically showed the growth of the revolutionary ...
- "I think, therefore I am." Descartes L. N. Tolstoy did not like the drama "At the Bottom": it was not true, because its characters spoke the purest literary language, and did not use any urban vernacular, ...
- Gorky's autobiographical stories are also associated with some of his stories of the 20s, stories-memories, in which there are no actual facts of autobiography, but undoubtedly reflects a certain spiritual experience of the author - the experience of those he experienced ...
- In the 90s M. Gorky turns to the topic of vagabondage, writes realistic stories, in which he displays a number of images of tramps, people thrown out of life by life itself. In one thousand nine hundred and two ...
- Gorky's story "The Old Woman Izergil" is a story-reflection on the meaning of life, on the problem of moral choice, on courage and heroism. Revealing the meaning is facilitated by the amazing composition of the story, which is called "story within a story." The narrative is split ...
- Critics and literary critics wrote a lot and often about the work of Maxim Gorky. Already in 1898 the critic Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky wrote an article "About M. Gorky and his heroes", in which he analyzed ...
- In 1902, A. M. Gorky wrote the play "At the Bottom." This play is a socio-philosophical drama. The play takes place in a cave-like basement, where everything is dirty and damp. In that...
- Maxim Gorky entered literature during a period of spiritual crisis that struck Russian society at the turn of the century. The dreams of harmony between man and society, which inspired the writers of the 19th century, remained unfulfilled; ...
- People can evoke sympathy with their erudition, courage, temperament. But you never know the dignity of a person! But the main thing is his pre-. worthiness, in my opinion, is determination, readiness to go all the way along ...
- M. Gorky's novel "Mother" is one of the most significant works of Russian literature of the early twentieth century. On its pages, the Russian revolutionary movement appears before us as a movement of the popular masses, heroic in ...
- In the works of the early 900s, Gorky portrayed not only the bourgeoisie. The writer perfectly understood that the impending revolutionary events would be a serious test for all strata of society, and in this regard in the plays ...
- One of the main themes of Maxim Gorky's work was the theme of striving for a new life, for the freedom of a person's personality. Gorky's play At the Bottom is no exception. “Freedom in whatever way ...
- What is Truth? Truth (in my understanding) is an absolute truth, that is, a truth that is the same for all cases and for all people. I don't think there is such a truth ...
- The worldview position of Maxim Gorky throughout the writer's life gravitated towards revolutionary romanticism, which presupposes the necessity and inevitability of correcting the world order by external influence. It is well known that Gorky was a humanist, therefore, as ...
- “At the Bottom” is a complex, contradictory work. And, like any truly great creation, the play does not tolerate one-line, unambiguous interpretation. Gorky gives in it two completely different approaches to human life, not ...
- The life and creative destiny of Maxim Gorky (real name - Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) is unusual. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod. Lost his parents early, spent his childhood in the family of his grandfather. Alyosha didn't have to study ...
- M. Gorky entered Russian literature in an unusual way. His works shocked the Russian reader, because they showed him a brave, strong, wonderful person. The romantic works of the young writer were completely opposite to Everything that ...
- “The old woman Izergil” by Maxim Gorky makes one believe in the existence of a fairy tale, in something unusual, unbridled, unexplored. We find ourselves in a world of songs, a calm sea, a world of inevitable beauty and pleasant tranquility. Something indescribable ...
- In the nine hundred years of the XX century, a severe economic crisis broke out in Russia. After each crop failure, masses of ruined, impoverished peasants roamed the country in search of earnings. Factories and factories were closed. Thousands of workers ...
- Comparing the work of the writer on the novel and the play, Gorky noted that “in composing a novel, the writer uses two methods: dialogue and description. The playwright uses only dialogue. He works with the bare word, so to speak. " AND...
Analysis of the episode of the work "Thomas Gordeev" - "Death of Ignat"
Ignat Gordeev is a gifted and intelligent man from the people, greedy for life, “seized by an indomitable passion for work,” in the past a water-carrier, and now a rich man - the owner of three steamers and a dozen barges. "His life did not flow smoothly, in a straight channel, like other people like him, and now and then, rebelliously boiling, rushed out of the rut, away from profit, the main goal of existence."
In the image of Ignat Gordeev, the type of merchant-robber is very vividly shown, whom spiritual depravity pushes to the physical, and the feeling of his vileness makes him repent angrily. "Three souls lived in the body of Ignat": profit, debauchery, repentance.
He belonged to people who internally protested against the order of this world, although they could not oppose the emerging economic relations.
Some of the last words of Ignat Gordeev, his last parting words to his son: "Don't hope for people ... don't expect much from them ... We all live to take, not give ...", clearly illustrate his attitude to life. As this character lived all his life, so he died. Everything he did, he did for himself and only for himself. Even his son, whom he had been waiting for, was for him only something that he left behind, so that his goods would not disappear, would not leave him even after his death.
Thomas's father is Ignat Gordeev, a fairly wealthy merchant. He created his own state. Coming out of the working environment, Ignat managed to preserve some spiritual values \u200b\u200bthat have long lost any meaning for other merchants. However, the thirst for accumulation prevailed, and Ignat began to spend all his energy on creating capital. "But, giving so much energy to this pursuit of the ruble, he was not greedy in the narrow sense of the concept and even, sometimes, showed sincere indifference to his property." Sometimes - "this usually happened in the spring, when everything on earth becomes so charming and beautiful and something reproachfully affectionate blows to the soul from a clear sky, - Ignat Gordeev seemed to feel that he was not the master of his body, but his low servant." Then Ignat arranged reckless carousing. On such days, "it seemed that he was furiously tearing those chains that he had forged and wears, tearing them and powerless to break." This protest soon ended, and the hunger for money prevailed. Such impulses did not bring anything new to Ignat's soul, and nothing changed in his life.
Of course, despite the brevity of the episode, the scene of Ignat's death is an extremely important and vivid part of the work.
The death of his father largely influenced the life of the protagonist, Foma Gordeev, changed its usual course, and, in addition, it was the description of death that once again emphasized the character of Ignat Gordeev himself, and the events developing after it showed the character of his son.
Ignat transfers his rebellious spirit to his son, and in him he develops much stronger. In childhood, when his aunt Anfisa reads fairy tales to him, robbers become Thomas's favorite heroes, even his father in childhood he counts among them. Becoming a little older, Thomas, naturally, ceases to believe in fairy tales, but his favorite pastimes are "robber raids" in the neighboring gardens for apples, in which "he puts his heart more than all other adventures and games." But life gradually takes its toll, and reality bursts into the wonderful world of childhood. And she bursts in very rudely: his father dies. After that, life begins to "pull him from all sides, preventing him from concentrating on thoughts." He remains alone: \u200b\u200bhe did not trust anyone as much as his father, even Mayakin, although he could not disagree with him in words, in his heart he opposed almost everything he said. And now there was simply no one to direct him. For the most part, he is surrounded by people who are weak, broken by life, or dishonest, or vile and cowardly. Among them there is no one who could show Thomas his "path", although among them there are those whose fate is very similar to the fate of Thomas. This is Lyubov Mayakina, his god-sister, and his school friend Yezhov. Love tried to find the meaning of life in books, but read them randomly and superficially, as a result, her own concepts blurred, and new ones, as such, did not appear. Yezhov had a somewhat different situation: he received a good education, became a writer-feuilletonist, but life battered him so much that he did not have enough strength to move on, and almost no one interested him except himself. As a result, he, too, can do nothing to help Foma.
The death of Foma's father was a kind of turning point in the narrative, a transition for the protagonist to a new stage in his life, and this is precisely one of the main reasons for the importance of this scene.
In my opinion, Ignat Gordeev is far from the last of the characters in the work. This is a characteristic hero, through the description of whose life, in part its opposition to the lives of other merchants, Gorky was able to show the mores and habits of contemporary merchants. In addition, the description of the life of Ignat Gordeev helps to further understand the character and feelings of Thomas himself.
The writing
The beginning of a new stage in Gorky's work is associated with his novel. "Foma Gordeev" (1899), dedicated to the image of the "masters of life", representatives of the Russian bourgeoisie - the merchants, with whom we have already met in some of Gorky's stories of the 90s. The writer comprehended the world of capital especially deeply when, as a correspondent for Nizhegorodsky leaf and Odessa news, he spent several months at the All-Russian trade and industrial exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod in 896. It was at this time that his stories about the "owners" were written: "Tosca", "Touched", "Bell" and others.
In Foma Gordeev, Gorky brings to the fore the problem of morality. He sets himself the task of showing how a truly human principle comes into conflict with the hypocritical, deceitful, and often frankly cynical morality of the capitalists. The novel shows a group of "masters" representing different socio-psychological types of the Russian merchants. Among them there are also representatives of the old, patriarchal early accumulators and those who, feeling their economic strength, strive for political power. The merchants of the first type include the large timber merchant and steamship operator Ananiy Shurov, whose prototype, as the author testifies, was the Nizhny Novgorod merchant Gordey Chernov, who was distinguished by unbridled tyranny and cruelty. Shurov went to wealth through a whole chain of crimes. He got rich by making counterfeit money with the help of a fugitive convict, then he killed him and burned his corpse along with the bathhouse where the convict was hiding from people. Lup Reznikov, Kononov, Zubov, Robustov and other merchants, depicted or mentioned in the novel, came to wealth through crimes. "Among these people," writes Gorky, "there is almost not a single one about whom Foma would not know anything criminal."
These people are ready to commit any crime for the sake of money - this is the essence of capitalism, its “family trait”. This is how the capitalists are shown not only to Gorky. I. Franko back in the 80s in the story painted a vivid type of predator in the image of Herman Goldkremer, in whose soul a terrible fever gradually flared up, a blind thirst for money, it drowned out all other feelings, forced him not to see any obstacles and beckoned him to one only goals - wealth. " In the second edition of the story (907), Franco further sharpened the traits of a predator in the character of Herman, emphasizing that in order to expand his wealth, he did not stop before outright robbery, having joined a gang of robbers. The idea that such a sharpening of the image Franco did under the influence of Gorky's novel, which he highly valued, is not without reason.
Another, although no less cruel and merciless, is represented in the novel by Yakov Mayakin. He is not only a wealthy merchant, a big businessman, but also an ideologist of the class. If Shurov is the enemy of enlightenment and technical progress, who believes that the machine corrupts people ("machines work, and people indulge in it"), then Mayakin is ready to replace a person with a machine: the car "started - it forges rubles for you ... without any words, without hassle ... And a man - he is restless. " Mayakin and for enlightenment, but one that would help level people, turn them into "simple bricks" of "one measure", so that it is convenient to manage: "I will put it as I want it." Mayakin loves to rant about the merchants as the bearer of culture. Knowing well the economic strength of the bourgeoisie, he believes that the merchants "today" have the right to demand political power, "freedom" in state affairs, "freedom of action."
However, for all his self-confidence, for all the optimism with which he looks at the future of the merchants, Mayakin, as a man of a sober and practical mind, could not help but feel that some changes were brewing in the world, that troubling days were coming for Russia, life was becoming hectic and unstable: "Russia has become confused, and there is nothing stable in it: everything has shaken! .."
Russia is really “embarrassed”. Even among the merchants, people appeared who felt the falsity of the proprietary world. This is exactly what the protagonist of the novel is, the young merchant Foma Gordeev, who is breaking out of his class. However, Gorky and Yakov Mayakin considered the central character, and there are reasons for this: Mayakin and Foma are two poles in the novel, two centers, in them the struggle of two tendencies, two morals is embodied to the greatest extent - the morality of the capitalist and the morality of a person striving for a healthy the beginning of life. Mayakin even obscures Thomas. At the same time, as Gorky noted in a letter to Chekhov (August, 1899), Foma "barred" Mayakin from censorship.
Not limiting himself to portraying the bourgeois class and people who are raising a revolt within this class, Gorky is trying to find those forces that could lead a conscious struggle to change life. And although the writer himself did not yet clearly understand these forces, his gaze more and more often turned towards working people, towards the working class. The images of workers in Foma Gordeev do not take up much space, but they play an important role in it. We hear the first protest against the owners from the lips of the sailors on the steamer Ignat Gordeev; the sailor Yefim, calling the owner a bloodsucker, angrily says: “... to tear off my skin, which I have not sold ... This is no conscience! Look, what a master to squeeze juice out of people. "
The images of working people, especially typesetters, who are the most literate among the working class, whom the journalist Yezhov introduces to Foma during his country walk, give the novel a special revolutionary sound. "The future belongs to people of honest labor ... Great work lies ahead for you!" In these words of Yezhov, Gorky's faith in the strength and capabilities of the people is expressed.